Alone Again
by Midnighter67
Summary: Gaara wasn't always alone... GaaOC friendship


**Ok, like i said i wrote this for a school assignment, it was a short story one. anyways here it is, hope you enjoy it. ;)**

**Alone Again**

The street lamp flickered, a stiff breeze whistled through his blood red hair. Tonight as of many, he was walking. He had walked the same path so many times that he could now recognize every blade of grass bent on making themselves visible on the small pathway. No animals stirred as he made his way to his nightly destination. All had fled at the presence of danger emitting from the nightly visitor.

It had taken awhile to slip away from the guard of personal ninja, or ANBU, his father had sent to watch his every move, but he was finally free to go to his personal haven.

The abandoned park was in a remarkably neat and stable condition, looked almost like new. Which, if fact, it was. Everyone had escaped as soon as it was made known that he liked to visit there.

Immediately he went to his favorite swing and sat down, looking intently at the ground below him.

His head only came up slightly at the slight ruffling in the near-by bush. Late night assassins had happened way too many times in his short life to even bother counting. So, he was surprised that the sand that seemed to jump up to shield him on its own, even with the slightest chance of danger didn't even show up next to him.

'So even my automatic defense abandons me' he thought sadly as the noise in the bush got louder and closer to him.

Instead of the usual black-clad assassin, he was greeted to the site of a small girl squirming out of the clutches of the bush. She had a very small build and looked as delicate a thin glass. What got to him were her eyes, though covered by her long and tangled chocolate hair, he could see two wide grey eyes with flecks of gold in them. Eyes that, no matter what anyone said, could be trusted and trusted right back.

Only after she pulled herself out did she finally seemed to notice his presence. They stared each other down for a few minutes; all the while he was searching for reasons of why she hadn't runaway or recoiled from his presence yet.

All of a sudden, she did something that he thought only his uncle was capable of doing without it being a lie; she gave him a genuine smile.

He lapsed into a stunned silence. She walked up to him and held out her hand eagerly. "Yosh! My name is Ai, what's yours?"

He still hadn't quite gotten over his shock and she frowned a bit when he didn't answer.

Her smile came back as she pointed at his birthmark; "Hey, that kanji on your forehead spells my name!" she spluttered excitedly, "Is your name Ai too?"

"N-no, m-my name is G-gaara." He managed to stutter out after his initial shock had at last past.

"That's too bad! It would have been cool to have been both named Ai, but I guess 'Ai' (love) is too girly to be a guy's name." Ai mused, patting his shoulder happily. "What're you doing here anyway? It's kind of late to be out in the park…"

"Don't you know who or what I am?" He blurted out, his question barely above a whisper.

She considered the question before crowing "Yosh, Gaara!" she cheered, arms in the air in triumph. Suddenly her eyes turned a steely grey, tone wary she asked, "Do you know who _I _am?"

Gaara blinked, a little surprised, and answered "Ai?"

"Ok then!" she concluded, her cautious mood suddenly lifted. She looked around the park and latched her chubby hand onto his. "Let's play on the swings!" she announced, dragging the small stunned boy with her. She paused to casually take a stray leaf from mussed head. He now realized that she was _covered_ with tree leaves and small twigs. Her clothes, though coated in dirt and grass stains, were foreign.

He glanced around the park; all of the park equipment, as well in the vicinity in general, was coated in a thin layer of sand. No trees, no dirt; the bush hardly counted as the leaves in her hair were much too large to belong to any bush _he_ ever heard of. 'And', he thought sheepishly, 'this was the _Sand_ village for a reason after all.

"Aren't your parents going to be worried?" He inquired, a little cautiously. He still remembered her strange reaction when she asked him before.

This time, surprisingly, her mood didn't change. "Aren't yours?" she shot back, curious.

"My dad doesn't care as long as no one around me gets murdered." He answered almost nonchalantly, and then turned his gaze expectantly on her, hoping that somehow she would disregard the fact that his father cared more about the people trying to kill him than the monster he had created out of his son.

To his relief, she didn't. Instead she muttered, "Mine are dead, not that they would care if I lived or died anyway…" Her voice trailed off and Gaara stiffened. 'Were there people that way to normal kids as well? He had figured that it was only him that was the object of hate to all humanity.

She looked at his petrified expression and patted his arm reassuringly. "No worries, we're each other's friend now!" she grinned. For the first time to anyone that wasn't his uncle, he smiled.

He remembered suddenly the reason why the ANBU had started following him in the first place. A rogue ninja had been spotted in the vicinity; she had left all of the people in her village either unconscious or too wounded to follow in pursuit. Her village had informed their neighbor, the Sand Village, that the rogue might seek cover there so the Sand had been on high alert since then. The panic of alert earned Gaara several ninjas following his every move so that the Sand Village's 'ultimate weapon' was secured.

He turned his head toward Ai. "There's a rogue ninja around here, so we have to play quietly." He whispered. She scoffed but, noting his expression slowly nodded reluctantly.

She grinned, grey eyes suddenly excited. "Hey, instead of playing on the swings let's spar!" she crowed hyperactively. He shook his head vigorously, she looked shock.

"Why?" she inquired, pouting.

"B-because…" he stammered, lip quivering in fear.

"You don't look like your hurt or anything," her eyes widened, "Could it be that you don't know how to fight, don't worry I'll teach you!" she enthused.

He hesitated briefly before surrendering to her enthusiasm. As soon as she figured out his secret then she would runaway, probably screaming and cursing his very existence like the rest of the people in the village.

She went slowly for his arm and tapped at it lightly. He tried to get his automatic shield of sand to stay put, to no avail, much to his chagrin. She stepped back a step when her small knock was blocked by the thick shield. Her eyes widened, and then she went at him for real. The sand again blocked her.

After the initial shock was over and her dumbfounded turned to one of awe, "That was AWESOME!" she smiled widely and exclaimed.

Gaara was frozen in place and she was forced to wave her hand in front of his eyes to claim his attention.

"You're not scared?" he asked nervously, as if that would somehow case her to regain her senses and yell at the top of her lungs for him to get away from her.

She frowned and cocked her head to one side "Why would I be? Your not going to hurt me are you?" she questioned.

He looked shocked at the question, the thought hadn't even occurred to him. She read his expression with a smile and then giggled.

"You're just like me!" she said, still giggling and gleefully pointing to herself.

He stared at her in bewilderment. He frowned, in what way could they possibly be the same?

"You have one of those bad things in your stomach that give you power." She elaborated poking his stomach. "Here, I'll show you", she lifted up her shirt slightly, revealing a black sealing mark engraved on her stomach. Gaara frowned slightly, taking in the sealing mark, fairly similar to his own, though that was impossible. His was there to seal the… monster inside.

Ai smiled at the look of registration on his face. "Yup, and look what I can do with mine!" She stared intently at a patch of sand, very slowly it started to rise in the air. It the condensed into itself and spontaneously combusted until it turned into a hunk of glass, then it flew and embedded itself into an innocent slide.

She stared at him expectantly; it was now Gaara's turn to gape in disbelief. He stared at the gaping hole that was left on the ground, not seeming to quite wrap his mind around how it had come to be. She reached for his hand in order to shake it and, as he was about to take it, his new friend suddenly fell to the ground, blood streaming from a wound on her head.

He recoiled in shock, he started to panic. He took a breath to scream for help, just as a gas bomb went off and he lapsed into unconsciousness.

He found he could still feel the perpetrator come up to them and pick them up with disgust.

"_This_ is the rogue ninja everyone has been looking for? She's nothing but a child!" he heard the perpetrator say incredulously. 'Did he mean Ai, was she okay?' his thoughts were interrupted as he heard their captor muse to himself quietly "If she's anything like the monster of the sand then she must be a deadly and vile creator. Though she was able to meet her own kind… I better not risk them coming into contact and joining together to destroy the village. I'll have to wipe their memories"

By the time the ninja from the other village came to collect the 'rogue' for execution the following morning. Both children's minds had been wiped. Coming morning the execution was carried out and the red head was alone again, though he would never remember a time where he wasn't.

**this broke my heart to have to write, but unfortunalty since the assignmnet was for a _short_ story so i couldnt give it the happy ending i wanted to, dont hate me Gaara! ;(**


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